IN THE MORNINGS, SHE LIKED TO WALK ALONG THE seawall. She went by herself and usually only passed one or two gentlemen, canes ticking against the stone, for the locals preferred to stroll later in the day, after siesta. Lately the weather had grown extreme, and there were occasions when the ocean would sweep over her path; at first this frightened her, but by a humid Friday in early July, she had come to view it as a kind of baptism. The force of the sea—as she had written in her notebook the night before, just before falling asleep—stirred her, and soothed her, and made her feel reborn.

Once she had crossed the Paseo del Prado, she turned and headed into the old town, with its shadowy arcades and glimpses of tiled and verdant patios just beyond the crooked streets. There were more people there, lingering in arched doorways or around tables in the squares. She wore a wide, drooping straw hat, and her short brown curls were pinned up at the nape to disguise the peculiar length. Not that it mattered—she was a foreigner, and all of her peculiarities were obscured by that one vast difference. No one recognized her here; it did not matter to any of the Habaneros passing in the street that she was Diana Holland.

That was in fact her name, and in other parts of the world it carried certain implications. For instance, that she had been taught from a young age never to show the naked skin of her hands outside of her family home, nor to walk on the streets of her own city unchaperoned. And although she had routinely flaunted these restrictions, she had never known what it was to be so thoroughly free of the rules of her hometown until she had arrived in Cuba. In her light-colored, loose-fitting dress, on the streets of a very foreign capital, she was both quite noticeable and, in a manner, invisible. She was anonymous, and, like the sea, this state of being made her feel all new and clear-eyed.

The ocean was behind her now, as well as the slate gray clouds that were massing over the bay and beginning to crowd out the blue sky. The green of the palm trees appeared extreme in contrast. The air was thick and moody with the possibility of rain, and the weather looked bad, but for her there was something satisfying in such a landscape. The shades of dark, the looming quality, all seemed to her a kind of expression of what was in her soul. Sooner or later the downpour would begin, first in big drops, then in heavy sheets that would soak the striped awnings and flood the gutters. It was not long ago—a matter of weeks, although sometimes it felt like forever—that she had arrived in Havana, but she was a quick study of atmospheric disturbances. This one had the color of suffering, and she would know.

She was alone and thousands of miles from home, but of course it wasn’t all suffering. If Diana had been pressed, she would have had to admit that there was only one thing she really wanted for. Even the loss of her curly mane of hair had not been truly bitter. She had cut it because of Henry Schoonmaker—she’d foolishly tried to enlist in the army to follow him, even though he was her sister Elizabeth’s former fiancé, and currently married to a rather terrifying girl, who as a maiden had gone by the name Penelope Hayes. A thing Diana wouldn’t do in pursuit of Henry had yet to present itself. Before this she had been a barmaid on a luxury liner, and before that she had hustled her way to Chicago on trains. That was when she still believed that Henry was in a regiment headed for the Pacific by way of San Francisco.

She had gotten used to the short hair, which had been a self-inflicted wound in the first place, and anyway there was nothing chopped tresses could do to contradict the rosy femininity of Diana’s petite body. In the previous months she had found herself capable in ways she could not possibly have imagined back in the cozy rooms of the townhouses of old New York. She had never, during her adventures, gone without food or slept out of doors. But, oh, the lack of Henry—how that wrung her delicate heart.

Diana had been all manner of places since her boy-short hair had failed to convince the United States Army that she was ready for basic training back in March, but none of them had looked remotely like this. As she walked, she couldn’t shake the sensation of being in a very old city—New York wasn’t so much younger, she knew, but somehow it effaced its history more effectively. She liked the idea that the cathedrals she passed, the façades with their wrought iron detailing and the red roofs above them, might still shelter aging conquistadors.

Officially she was in Paris. That was what the papers were reporting, with a little help from her friend Davis Barnard, who wrote the “Gamesome Gallant” column in the New York Imperial. He was also the reason she knew Henry wasn’t where he was supposed to be, either—apparently old William Schoonmaker held such sway that he had not only secured a safer post for his son in Cuba, but had managed to bully all the New York newspapermen into keeping mum about the transfer. Diana liked the idea that neither of them was where they were supposed to be. They each had a decoy self, out there in the world, and meanwhile their real selves were moving stealthily, ever closer to one another.

Presently she passed through a square where dogs lay languidly in the shadows and men lingered over their coffees in outdoor cafés. She had never been to Europe and so she couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed to her there was something Continental about the city, with its long memory and crumbling buildings, the ghosts in its alleys and the warbling of its Catholic bells, its slow and pleasant traditions. There was that smell in the air that always comes just before it rains, when the dry dirtiness of a city rises up a final time before it is washed away, and Diana began to hurry a little in anticipation of an onslaught. She wanted to arrive home, to her little rented rooms, and hopefully avoid being drenched.

She had reached the edge of the square, and was moving quickly enough that she found it prudent to put her hand up to better secure her hat. Ahead of her were two American soldiers wearing fitted dark blue jackets and stone-colored slacks, and Diana’s eye was inexorably drawn to the easy gait of the taller one with the jauntily cocked hat. It was magnetic, his stride, and familiar, and for a moment she swore the sun must have broken through the clouds to cast the skin at the back of his neck a golden shade she knew well.

“Henry!” she gasped out loud. It was characteristic of Diana that she spoke before she thought.

The tall soldier turned first, slowly. For a moment her lungs had ceased to function; her feet felt like unwieldy hooves and wouldn’t move forward, no matter what urging she gave them. She forced oxygen in through her nostrils, but by then the man’s face was disappointingly visible, and she saw that the features were too soft and boyish, the chin too covered by reddish beard, to belong to Henry. His face was confused, devoid of recognition, but he went on staring at her. His mouth hung open a few seconds before breaking into a grin.

“My name ain’t Henry,” he drawled. “But you, little lady, you can call me by whatever name you like.”

His eyes went on gazing at her until they seemed a little fevered, and she couldn’t help but return his smile faintly. She liked being appreciated, but she did not want to be stalled. She had made the mistake of straying from Henry when he had not seemed to be hers before, and the recollection still horrified her. There were American troops all over the city, and someday soon she would run into the right one. She was as sure of it, as of something fated.

In the meantime, she gave the tall soldier a wink—though not a very special one—and then hurried on, toward the Calle Obrapia, where she would ready herself for evening. The day was young, and everything in the city was bright, and Henry was out there somewhere, and she wanted to prepare for the day when the stars arranged themselves auspiciously, and long-lost lovers came face-to-face.